1917
by Aries Draco
Summary: from kink meme. A World War I story, based on a song.


1917

He took a long drag on his cigarette, because the taste of the tobacco was better than tasting gas at the back of his throat. He was tired, his people were tired: April had been a bad month, and May had been worse. In June, America popped up and cheerfully told him that he was going to kick Germany's ass for the sake of justice, and it was all he could do then to bite his tongue and be just be thankful. They could use all the help they could get, no matter how late it was in coming.

The night air was cool in Paris and it soothed him a little to be away from the front. Not enough, because the war was taking place on him and he would wake up in the mornings with fresh wounds no matter where he was, but he took his pleasures where he could now.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and, for an instant, smelt the sharp scent of the war. Then it was gone, and this was Paris, and his cigarette was the only thing perfuming the air.

And there was England.

England, still dressed in his uniform, though it was a clean one, the dress uniform that still had to be pristinely starched and pressed. England, offering him a wry smile and a deep bow, as if he was a lady to be courted.

"I had three days," stated the young man as if it explained everything, though he couldn't understand why England would bother.

Oh, he understood fine why England was still fighting. That was simple enough. It wasn't for the love of France, no matter how it might seem. It just so happened that the battle lines were drawn through him and they shared a common enemy. What he couldn't understand was why England would bother visiting _him_, when he had abandoned the front to walk back to Paris, abandoned his allies and left them to do the attacking.

But England didn't seem too angry, reaching out to steal his cigarette. He took a drag, slowly, suggestively, before returning it straight into France's mouth. "How about a drink?"

It would end up as more than just a drink, he knew, from the look in those green eyes. "On you?" he asked, half-teasing, licking his lips and tasting England.

A flicker of something crossing that face, something that England probably didn't want him to see, something that he didn't want to see. Then England gave him an arrogant smirk. "Well, I can still afford you."

They went Dutch in the end, because it didn't need to be said that the war had been draining both their coffers. England seemed to be making up for this by drinking enough for two, when his tolerance was somewhat less than one. He could understand why, of course, but he couldn't help but cringe when the litany of French jokes came pouring out. It took some careful manoeuvring to get them both out without getting lynched, England laughing all the way. He didn't know why he bothered, but as they walked out into the moonlight, England turned to him and said, "I'm going back tomorrow," and he remembered why.

"The morning will come, but tonight is tonight," he pointed out to keep his heart from sinking.

England turned to him, as though surprised, stumbling and scuffing those immaculately polished boots. For a moment, France saw him falling down dead, face painted pale by the moonlight, and he rushed forward to catch him.

They were pressed together by their position, and England was warm, warm from the alcohol in the cooling night. He could feel the man's breath against his neck, the heartbeat against his chest, and he heard England chuckle.

"Tonight is tonight."

He tangled his fingers into England's and took a step. England followed, then, somehow, they were dancing. Perhaps it was Paris, the city of love, or perhaps it was just the alcohol, but he wasn't going to complain, humming a quiet tune to go along.

"Sounds familiar," commented England, drawing back slightly and letting the moonlight light off his face.

"It's 'Clair de Lune'," France replied, throat dry from the sight. If someone had ever told him that he would one day see England as an angel, he would have laughed. He would also have been wrong, because this, this was...

"The light of the moon?"

"Oui."

Now England was staring up at the sky, at the full moon. "It's bright enough that they might take the chance to attack," he muttered.

France froze at the words and England must have noticed because he turned his head back down to look at him. Perhaps the man took his expression as curiosity, or perhaps it was just petty vengeance, but England took a step away, leaving just their fingers intertwined.

"In some ways, it's gotten worse since you left. Have you heard about the mustard gas yet? Smells almost edible, but works like a blanket of fire and hangs around for _days_. You don't even have to breathe it in to be put out of service.

"And Ypres? It's a bog. And the rain, god, what the hell is wrong with the weather this year? Shouldn't it be high summer by now?

"And even the good news doesn't sound all that good. I heard this morning that we took the 1800 metres at Pilckem Ridge yesterday, but the casualty count on our side is currently estimated at, oh thirty thousand or so and rising, so that works out to, what, seventeen men per metre? You can't even fit seventeen men in a metre of space for fuck's sake!"

The grip on his hand was getting painfully tight, but he could hardly feel it. "England?" His voice was barely audible, because if he spoke any louder, something was going to break.

"England, are you upset that I'm not there to help?"

The man paused, as if suddenly realising where he was, who he was with.

Those green eyes focused on him again and he had to swallow hard to keep his composure. A hand pressed on his chest, tugging down the collar of his shirt to reveal the white bandages that covered his entire torso and back.

"You are where you need to be," said England finally. "We've got America now anyway, though it's going to take a couple of months more to get him entrenched." From the humourless smile on the man's face, France could tell that the word was deliberate. Gallows humour, for a war that was more like a massacre.

"Just take care of yourself for the time being," continued England, looking at the bandages now instead of his face. "You can come back when you're feeling better."

He couldn't help himself. Closing the small distance between them, he gave England a hug, silently expressing everything that he just would not articulate. He felt England return the hug after a moment, gently, carefully, mindful of the wounds on his back that had been open since 1914.

"I know what I can do," he said after awhile, running his hands down England's back. "I can give you a morale boost." The way he said it left no room for misinterpretation and he could feel England grinning against his shoulder.

"You horny bastard."

Then they were off again, moving with a renewed sense of urgency.

The first thing he did was to draw the curtains, then he put on the light. England was holding onto a pair of roses.

"One for you," said the man, holding it up to France's ear as if intending to tuck it into his hair. But instead, England turned and dropped both into the vase on the nightstand. "And one for home."

The roses had not been dethorned, the two stems tangling with each other in the vase, as if afraid to let the other go. The pure white petals looked forlorn: something so innocent ought not belong to such troubled times.

"Where did you get them?" he asked, fetching some water for the flowers.

"From your garden, on the way up," replied England, smiling wanly at him. "Were you so eager that you didn't notice?"

He didn't, but what he was noticing now was that England seemed much paler and more tired than he'd seemed at the beginning of the night. Was it because of the better lighting now that he hadn't noticed before, or was it that he hadn't wanted to see it? He nearly spilled the water from the jug, but England took it from him to fill the vase, stroking the velvety petals with a pensive look on his face.

"Tomorrow, we will be collecting bodies," said England, sounding, for once that night, as haggard as he looked.

France reached out and took his face into his hands. Those green eyes regarded him in surprise as he leaned in for a kiss. "Tomorrow is tomorrow: it'll come when it comes," he whispered against England's lips, breathing in the faint scent of war, of alcohol and smoke. "But tonight, tonight, you can have _my_ body."

Fingers fisted in his hair, closing that last centimetre with a hard kiss.

"Tasteless, hopeless, horny, bastard," hissed England, punctuating each word with a vicious kiss. But there was no malice in his voice, just a hint of exasperation and a whole lot of thinly-veiled desire.

France couldn't help laughing, just a little, hands busy with the buttons on that immaculate dress uniform. England returned the favour with ardour, pausing only for an instant to stroke his bandaged back.

He couldn't lie on his back, so he found himself straddling the man, lowering himself down until it was fully sheathed. He was barely prepared, but every second wasted was one second closer to the dawn, and England was pulling him down for brutally hot kisses.

"Move. Now."

The raw desire in that voice jolted him into motion, and he couldn't help but think, even if this wasn't the best he'd had, it was something he was going to remember.

His back hurt. Lower down, it hurt too, but he wasn't dissatisfied. When they were done, he turned off the lights and opened the curtains before crawling back into bed and drawing the covers over them both. England must have been more tired than he'd let in on, because he was sleeping like the dead. The moonlight wasn't helping, giving England's impassive face that corpse-like grey cast, but from here, he could see England's breathing, could feel the heat of his body, could almost sense the heartbeat. It was comforting.

He'd almost fallen asleep when he felt England jerk out of bed. Instead of the expected stream of curses, all there was a far more disturbing silence, broken only by the sound of England shuffling through his discarded clothes. Brandy, perhaps. Probably.

England returned to the bed, silver flask in hand, trembling uncontrollably. What had he dreamt? What had he been forced to recall? As much as he wanted to comfort the man, he really didn't want to know. He had his own nightmares; he didn't need any more. So they sat in silence with their arms around each other until England dropped back to sleep again.

They'd both seen their share of corpses when they were still fighting together, but he was the one who had to feel them on his body, feel the dead piling up, unburied, unclaimed. Briefly, he wondered how Belgium was doing, now that the offensive had moved to her place.

He extricated himself carefully from England's tight embrace, tucking the man gently into bed. His bandages were wet, and it was best to change them, so he adjourned to the bathroom and turn the lights on there.

His reflection stared back at him from the mirror, so pale and worn that he could hardly recognise himself. How had things turned out so bad? Where had they gone wrong? He thought he'd put a stop to Germanic war mongering after he got rid of Prussia, but this young Germany turned out to be even worse. And their system of alliances was supposed to have _prevented_ war, not to drag the entire of Europe into one!

The past three years had been change after painful change, and they were all finding newer, more efficient ways of hurting one another. But this was going to be the end. When he got out of this, he would work to make sure that Germany would never be able to stand again. This war, this Great War, it had to be the last.

But before he could plan so far ahead, the Entente Powers had to win. Tomorrow, England would go back to Belgium to fight, and to die a little more inside. And he would be sitting in Paris, waiting.

He made sure he was awake before England, so that the man could not just slip away in the morning. Goodbyes were always the most awkward. He briefly thought of sending England off with a prayer, but England was Protestant, so he took the cross from around his neck put it around England's instead.

"I'll be wanting that back," he told the man, receiving a blushing curse in reply.

It was no use hoping that England would come back intact, because it was a war, after all, and a war on a scale so grand that the world had never seen before. As he waved the man off, he thought, maybe, if he could come back, that would be enough.

There were more nights spent lounging around Paris, more nights spent smoking and drinking and tending to his wounds. Once in awhile, he would hear of the battle in Ypres, though he always made sure not to hear too much of it. The air grew chill as summer gave way to autumn, and, as the moon began to show its face as a sliver of light in the sky, he felt a hand on his shoulder and smelt the sharp scent of war.

Canada was bent over, as if he'd just sprinted back from Belgium. His uniform, though clean, was rumpled, and his fingers were digging into France's shoulder as if he was afraid that France would just disappear if he let go.

"We won, I think," he told France, not a hint of joy in his young face. "In Ypres. I thought you might like to know."

He didn't, not really, but it was something he had to hear about sooner or later.

"You look like you need a drink," he told the young man. "And some cheering up." He spread his arms, as if for a hug, and looked at Canada expectantly.

Canada looked lost for a moment, staring at him and through him. "...but we won," he repeated, as if trying to convince himself. "France, we won, we really did, we won."

He held the young man tightly until Canada could stand to face the world again. Then they went for their drink which could be more than a drink, because who was he to deny them?

Notes:

Based on the song 1917.  
(www. imeem .com/dearprudence/music/CoDbXv5a/linda-ronstadt-emmylou-harris-1917/)

Clair de Lune is an old French poem/song. You can hear one rendition here: Youtube: 8Vp5jQRfJRE

This story occurs on the night of 3rd August 1917 because it's the night of the full moon that month. The epilogue...ish part would be about 7th November 1917, the day after the the official end of the battle of Passchendaele.

In April, the Nivelle Offensive failed spectacularly, leaving _one hundred thousand_ French troops dead within the first _week_. And the General in charge made them continue with it into May. By May, the morale of the French soldiers was so low, they (did the French thing and went on strike) mutinied and deserted. Though many were persuaded to come back eventually, French troops didn't participate in offensive actions for the next year.  
(Wikipedia: Western_Front_(World_War_I)#French_morale)

Mustard gas is awesome stuff, and, by awesome, I mean terrifying. It burns, it lingers in places, _and it has delayed effects_ so you wouldn't even know when you came into contact with it. Tonnes of that stuff was dumped into the ocean for disposal where they lay active to this very day.  
(Wikipedia: Mustard_gas)

The battle England was referring to was the battle of Pilckem Ridge, that, coincidentally for me, concluded the day before the day I chose for the fic.  
(Wikipedia: Battle_of_Passchendaele#Battle_of_Pilckem_Ridge)

England telling France to just look after himself is a reference to the defensive actions taken by the French troops at that time, since they weren't out attacking.

The national flower of England is a rose, or so I heard, so it appears England's a little homesick.

France's back injury is quite obviously referring to the parts of the Western Front cutting through France. He'll still be recovering when WWII starts, the poor bugger.

France and Germany had some long standing enmity between them.  
(Wikipedia: French-German_enmity)

Regarding the battle of Passchendaele, it was Canadian Corps that put an end to the battle by capturing Passchendaele. Canada was pretty awesome during WWI, it would seem. But the battle itself was a bloodbath and a terrifying waste of human life. Take a look at the statistics yourself and remember that war is a truly terrible thing.  
(Wikipedia: Battle_of_Passchendaele)


End file.
